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Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

tokyopaladin.substack.com

21–30 of 213 posts

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#21

Many countries are tightening the immigration screws. For example, Thailand just reduced visa exempt stays for most countries from 60 to 30 days and have been going hard after illegal foreign businesses set up under Thai nominees. While there are usually political and economic factors that contribute to these decisions, I've been living overseas for almost two decades and have noticed that rampant abuse is now almost…

That's pretty crazy when you see that in developed countries, Japan in particular, population is aging and declining. Countries should be competing for the best immigrants, not closing their doors.

  Countries should be competing for the best immigrants, not closing their doors.
Don't mistake what the elites want with what working class people want. Elites want a higher population - even if they're immigrants - so the market grows bigger for their businesses. But immigrants come with many problems for the working class people.

The elites aren't going to have a house next to immigrants. They don't feel the effects in their castle.

Anyways, this change is to target only the best immigrants. There are still ways for them to immigrate to Japan. This change just closes the loophole for lower quality immigrants.

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#22
post #2

A large number of Airbnb hosts were using this Business Manager Visa as a way to stay in Japan. People in China realized they could just buy/lease a guesthouse in Osaka / any tourist hotspot, and rent it out on Airbnb. Then they become a "business manager" and get a Japanese resident visa within 3 months. All you needed is to invest 5million yen, which is like 31k USD, which isn't much. People wrote entire online gui…

A guesthouse in Osaka is 31k USD?

Iirc there's a scrap-n-build culture in Japan, houses are not really valued compared to land (due earthquake, quality, culture,etc).

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#23
post #2

A large number of Airbnb hosts were using this Business Manager Visa as a way to stay in Japan. People in China realized they could just buy/lease a guesthouse in Osaka / any tourist hotspot, and rent it out on Airbnb. Then they become a "business manager" and get a Japanese resident visa within 3 months. All you needed is to invest 5million yen, which is like 31k USD, which isn't much. People wrote entire online gui…

I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system from a strictly pragmatic standpoint but 5 million yen seems far too low.

>I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system

That depends of what you're hoping to prevent.

If you want to filter out people who can't sustain themselves, petty crime or the like, it works. But it can open the door to a lot of unwanted effects.

A foreign national that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#24
post #2

A large number of Airbnb hosts were using this Business Manager Visa as a way to stay in Japan. People in China realized they could just buy/lease a guesthouse in Osaka / any tourist hotspot, and rent it out on Airbnb. Then they become a "business manager" and get a Japanese resident visa within 3 months. All you needed is to invest 5million yen, which is like 31k USD, which isn't much. People wrote entire online gui…

I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system from a strictly pragmatic standpoint but 5 million yen seems far too low.

A number of European countries have allowed this; the 2010s were the heyday of this path. But it turns out that a lot of the people with big money to buy residence, got their money from organized crime, and it isn’t always easy to vet applicants (or corrupt officials could overlook the applicant’s background).

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#25
post #5

Thought the name seems familiar: Jake Adelstein got his 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice turned into a (fun to watch, apparently very dramatized, though that was already criticized for the memoirs) 2 season HBO series in 2022.

The book is far more interesting than the drama. In fact I'd go so far to say that the drama has really nothing much to do with the book besides the title and some superficial characters.

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system from a strictly pragmatic standpoint but 5 million yen seems far too low.

>I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system That depends of what you're hoping to prevent. If you want to filter out people who can't sustain themselves, petty crime or the like, it works. But it can open the door to a lot of unwanted effects. A foreign national that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large…

> A [person] that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.

Even to their home country.

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#27

Many countries are tightening the immigration screws. For example, Thailand just reduced visa exempt stays for most countries from 60 to 30 days and have been going hard after illegal foreign businesses set up under Thai nominees. While there are usually political and economic factors that contribute to these decisions, I've been living overseas for almost two decades and have noticed that rampant abuse is now almost…

That's pretty crazy when you see that in developed countries, Japan in particular, population is aging and declining. Countries should be competing for the best immigrants, not closing their doors.

There is no "competing for the best immigrants".

Anyone who is at the top of the ladder (educated, wealthy) will move wherever is most desirable, and thats pretty much only the US. You can't fake it with incentives, America doesn't have to offer immigrants anything it simply exists as the global centre for tech, finance, medical etc. - nobody is lining up to move to China, India or Germany.

Anyone who is at the bottom of the ladder is, as Bernie Sanders put it, a pawn in the Koch brothers conspiracy to reduce wages. These countries don't care about quality they just want to jack up housing demand and bottom out wages because thats great for the asset class and big business (until they automate and ditch all these people)

The immigration narrative is BS. The idea that we're aging out so must desperately bring in more UberEats riders is nuts. Nobody in my country can afford to be a nurse - I know an eye doctor at a major London clinic who is leaving this country because after 20 years working for the NHS she simply is not paid enough to live.

We're absolutely obsessed with immigration and all we are doing is lining the pockets of corporates, brain-draining countries that desperately need skilled people and blurring the lines of social responsibility in a globalist economy.

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty crazy when you see that in developed countries, Japan in particular, population is aging and declining. Countries should be competing for the best immigrants, not closing their doors.

There is no "competing for the best immigrants". Anyone who is at the top of the ladder (educated, wealthy) will move wherever is most desirable, and thats pretty much only the US. You can't fake it with incentives, America doesn't have to offer immigrants anything it simply exists as the global centre for tech, finance, medical etc. - nobody is lining up to move to China, India or Germany. Anyone who is at the botto…

> I know an eye doctor at a major London clinic who is leaving this country ..

To go to the USofA or to, say, Australia?

Re: Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

#30
I was surprised when I first heard of that. I actually noticed this on Paolo from Tokyo's youtube channel first. The vibe was strange, because Paolo seemed happy about stricter controls. I was baffled about that, since it ran counter to the rest of Paolo's channel (which is actually best with regards to the series "A day in the life of a japanese xyz"; this is actually insightful and even historically important). So Japan sending the message "gaijin leave now" kind of would make me reconsider where to go - aka not Japan. If it is in Asia, well, there may now be friendlier countries. And the technological gap isn't that huge anymore; South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan - these are almost equal to Japan. Even some parts in mainland China (but who wants to live in sinomarxistic-capitalism - that's such a weird psycho combination). Even Thailand, while it is not on the same standard as the other countries, may seem friendlier now than Japan with his anti-foreigner's policies. It seems their true mindset has never really changed. That may also explain why the english language is still regarded as a hostile entity to many; contrast this to Singapore please.
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